It’s Been 1 Year Since the Japan Disaster; Here Are 5 Ways To Give Back

I remember my Mom calling at 2am and demanding that I turn on the television, and as my sleepy eyes adjusted to the footage of an unthinkably vast wall of muddy water engulfing an entire town, I thought, “Why does she want me to watch another one of those cheesy Roland Emmerich disaster flicks?” But then I realized this was not CGI — this was CNN. It was live. And it was Japan.

The scale of this tragedy would have been impossible to imagine — except that we didn’t have to. We could watch it unfold as it was happening, through the smart phones of Japan’s highly connected population and the courageous coverage of 24-hour news outlets. As the UK’s Daily Mail puts it, this was “the world’s first YouTube catastrophe.”

Our partners in action over at DoSomething.org teamed up with Students Rebuild to issue the Paper Cranes for Japan challenge to the world’s students. The outpouring of support from all 50 United States, seven Canadian provinces and more than 30 countries brought in some 700,000 cranes and inspired a $400,000 bonus donation from the Bezos Family Foundation for a grand total of $500,000 in relief funds! Check out this inspiring video for more on this youth-fueled philanthropic phenomenon:

+ Architecture for Humanity: Reconstruct the northern Japan region where the earthquake and tsunami hit hardest. Collaborating with local design and construction professionals, AFH is looking to help a number of small shops and businesses recover, open, create jobs, and collectively provide a financial future for affected communities.

+ Unite for Japan: Join actor Ken Watanabe (“Batman Begins,” “Inception”) as he restores his home country — his site connects you with Japan Society and Global Giving, where donations can be made to Peace Winds, Mercy Corps, International Medical Corps, The Tokyo Volunteer Network for Disaster Relief, JEN, Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities (ETIC), and the Japan NPO Center.